Konrad knew this must indeed be the equine twin of Wolf’s horse.
The second savage hurtled up the same rock that Konrad had climbed, and launched itself through the air at the rider. Konrad had already drawn his new weapon. His arm and the sword were as one. They flashed through the air, and the dog head was severed from its humanoid body.
Konrad felt a sudden jolt of heat, almost as if he had swallowed a glass of Estalian liqueur. But instead of a warm glow on his tongue and down his throat, this apparent heat affected his whole body, radiating throughout his entire being. Its source seemed to be his right arm, his sword arm.
He was pleased that he had slain an enemy; that was what the strange sensation must have been. He had felt fire in his veins again, the thrill of battle. It seemed so long since he had held a sword, ridden a horse, fought in combat. He peered through the eye slits in the visor, eager to find more of the foe to slay. He soon discovered them.
He had hardly tugged the reins, barely begun to move his body to give the horse its commands, before the animal responded. It turned and broke into a canter, heading up river to where more of the benighted marauders had appeared in Mannslieb’s light.
In a matter of minutes, Konrad shed as much blood as was spilled during a sacrifice to Khorne — and there were even more fatalities. His sword swung through the night, slashing and slicing, and the bronze of the blade turned to blood as the beastmen turned to corpses.
Konrad felt invulnerable. Every life he took gave him new energy. With every drop of blood that he spilled, he became more invigorated.
The horse seemed to know exactly what it must do, and he did not have to think about controlling it. Neither did he have to think about killing, that came naturally.
The creatures of Khorne attacked with club and sword, spear and mace, but they all met the same fate. They died.
The bronze armour absorbed every blow that evaded Konrad’s shield, and none of the mutants succeeded with a second strike. They all fell to a sword thrust, or their limbs were hacked off as the sharp blade swept down, and they ended their lives as their sacrificial offerings had done, bleeding to death.
They came from both ends of the valley. Despite what had happened to their comrades, none of them retreated. They attacked with insane frenzy, incited by the flow of blood. The floor of the valley was littered with hideous bodies; others were carried downstream by the swirling torrent of the narrow river.
A final stroke, and Konrad stabbed his sword into the forehead of a furred monstrosity — the forehead where its third eye had been. It was his last victim. The creature kicked and writhed, finally dying.
There was silence, total silence. There were no cries and screams and moans from the wounded. There were no wounded.
The Chaos brood had died by the score, but these were only a few of those with whom he had reluctantly travelled so far, from Kislev into the Empire. All the dead had entered the fray on foot. None of them had been the mounted elite, the terror troops.
And none of them had been Kastring.
Konrad went in search of his hated adversary.
Kastring must have known that all those he had sent after Konrad were dead. He would have heard the sounds of combat; the clash of weapons and the inhuman cries of death would have echoed up the slope. He might even have glimpsed the battle through the trees from his vantage point above.
Konrad had to take the long way around in order to climb the hill, via the head of the valley. Even so, his mount was able to carry him up the incline at a very steep angle. He remembered Midnight, the way Wolf’s horse had been the only animal able to climb the rugged track to the lost dwarf temple.
The night was almost over by the time Konrad reached the top of the slope. Morrslieb had vanished from the sky, and Mannslieb would soon be rendered almost invisible by the sun. Already the sky was beginning to lighten towards the east, heralding the dawn. The marauders had left in great haste. They had not had time to dispose of the headless bodies of their victims.
One of the dead still had its head, the boy that Silk had slain. There was a gaping hole in his chest, his broken ribs showing through where the tailed girl had ripped out his heart. Like all the others, however, he seemed to have been dead for weeks, not hours.
Even in the half light, Konrad noticed that the ground where the savages had camped was lifeless. Everything had begun to decay and rot. The trees would soon be like fossils, but blackened as though charred by flames; and it was as if tons of salt had been poured upon the ground, not the blood of innocent victims. Nothing would ever grow here again. Chaos had staked its claim to another part of the Empire.
But why had its minions been in such haste to leave? Could they really be so terrified of Konrad? That was the only explanation. They were unaware that they had fled from their fugitive prisoner, however; they believed he was the bronze warrior, because it seemed that was who had slain so many of their number.
Konrad had never fought such a battle. Although he had killed more at one time, when he had slain so many goblins in their foul subterranean lair, the fight against Khorne’s evil servants had gone on much longer. Many of his antagonists had been berserkers, with no combat skills, but there had been an equal number of veteran warriors amongst the mutants.
He should have been exhausted, but he felt totally revived. He had been a prisoner for many weeks, had never been fed properly, had always been weary and dispirited. Yet now he was fully fit, completely alert; he did not even feel hungry or thirsty.
He glanced at the ground, inspecting it for wheel tracks. There were plenty of hoofprints, leading in a variety of diverse directions; but whichever way the chariot bearing Khorne’s altar had gone, that was the route Kastring would have taken. The wheel ruts led towards the west, deeper into the heart of the Empire. Konrad followed, the dawn sun behind him.
It seemed only a few minutes later when he noticed three mounted figures in the distance. They had halted and were spread out across his path. They were the rearguard, he suspected, making a stand here in order to allow the chariot with its cargo of sacred armour to escape.
Each rider was mounted on a huge animal, a creature which had once been a horse, or whose ancestors had been. Now they were horned and clawed, scaled and armoured, and scale and armour were often fused into one. The same was true of the riders. They were clad in red and black, and it was hard to distinguish where the fur that they wore became their flesh, where their brass armour became metallic bone. The two on the flanks had their heads completely covered by elaborate helmets, wrought into the symbol of Khorne, but the middle one of the trio was Kastring, solemn and brooding.
Fifty yards from the three dark knights, Konrad halted. He fitted his shield over his left arm, gripping the handle with his gauntleted fist, and drew his sword. He had not cleaned away the blood, but the bronze was unstained and gleamed in the scarlet light of dawn.
“Who are you?” Kastring demanded.
He had not wanted to know his name previously, and Konrad considered saying he had none; but he remained silent.
“What do you want?” said Kastring. “Which god do you serve? Why have you chosen a quarrel with us?”
When Konrad maintained his silence, Kastring drew his ser-pent-hilted sword. The rider to his left was armed with a long-handled axe, the third with a morning-star, a spiked ball on the end of a chain.
And when Kastring swung his sword as a command to attack, it was those two who suddenly charged at Konrad.
Almost before he could instruct his own mount, Konrad’s horse sprang forward and began to gallop towards the Chaos warriors. He rode between them, his shield blocking the axe, the quillons of his sword hilt entangling the chain and tearing it from his opponent’s grasp. The three combatants were past each other in less than a second. Kastring had not moved, and Konrad expected that he would join in the fray. Instead, he stood his ground and watched.
Konrad’s horse turned, and so did those of his opponents. They thunder
ed back towards him, one still armed with an axe, the other now bearing a sword. This time, they slowed, as did Konrad. They attacked from both sides, but he did not try to escape. He used the shield to defend himself against the axe. It was a heavier weapon, more unwieldy, and fewer blows could be struck than with a sword.
Konrad’s own sword met that of his other enemy, sparks flying. Again, the blades clashed, then again. But the next time, Konrad drew back at the last moment, and his foe’s weapon flashed past him. Konrad lunged forward, and the metal plunged into the soft flesh of his opponent’s side, through the gap between breastplate and backplate. The blade passed completely through his body. When Konrad withdrew it, his enemy slumped forward, then dropped from the saddle.
By then Konrad had focused his attention upon his second assailant. He took another axe blow on his shield, then dropped his guard. The knight’s arm was raised for a repeated assault, and Konrad simply thrust out his sword, the blade entering the throat immediately below the helmet. He sawed his weapon to left and to right. The helmet toppled to the ground, and the warrior’s head was within.
The rider remained upright in the saddle, and for a moment Konrad thought that the duel was not yet over. He had fought apparently dead opponents many a time previously. Then the axe dropped, so did the shield, and finally the headless corpse tumbled to the earth.
Konrad saw Kastring reach for his warlance, its serrated blade decorated with various talismans, bleached bones and plaits of hair. Konrad sheathed his sword and unfastened his own lance.
They rode towards each other, their horses cantering as the riders lowered their weapons, and then the animals broke into a gallop. Watching over the top of his shield, Konrad stared along the length of his lance as the gap between himself and his implacable enemy narrowed.
It was over in a moment. Konrad’s bronze shield deflected the spear point, while his own lance penetrated Kastring’s chest, impaling him. Kastring flew backwards, skewered on the end of the lance like a sheep upon a spit. He slid off and fell to the ground. Konrad rode towards him and gazed down.
“Who are you?” Kastring gasped, staring up at his conqueror. Blood bubbled from his mouth and flowed from the gaping wound in his chest. He was still defiant, still proud and arrogant. Even his death was like a victory. He had lived for combat, and this was the way he had chosen to die, his own blood a final offering to Khorne. Konrad wished that he could have humiliated Kastring, awarded him a dishonourable and degrading death.
He remained silent, watching as Kastring reached for his sword, his hand moving with agonizing slowness. But before his fingers could touch the snake hilt, his hand slipped back and he was dead.
Konrad experienced none of the triumph he should have enjoyed with victory and the conquest of his enemy. He had felt a surge of warmth when each of the three knights had fallen victim to his weapons, as had also happened with the death of each mutant, but that was all.
He replaced his shield and lance, then reached up to raise his visor. It would not move; it must have jammed somehow. He struggled to push it up, but to no avail. He used the heel of his gauntlet, hitting the underneath of the visor with his hand. Neither did that succeed.
He needed more force, he realized. The pommel of his sword should serve his purpose. He took hold of the hilt to draw the blade and attempted to pull it from the scabbard. Nothing happened. He must have sheathed it wrongly, at an angle, and it had become wedged. He seized the hilt with both hands and tugged as hard as he could, but he was unable to release it.
Once again, he tried to free his visor, but it was still firmly stuck. When he began to undo his helmet at the shoulder, the fastenings would not come loose.
His endeavours would be less difficult if he were on the ground, he decided. He attempted to climb down from his horse, but discovered that was also impossible…
He could move his leg a fraction, but could not move the armour itself. It seemed to have become a part of the armour of his mount.
Man, horse, armour, they were as one.
He was the bronze horseman.
He was bronze; he was horse; he was man.
The horse took him where he needed to go, and the armour provided him with all the nourishment he required. The armour fed on life, and the lifeforce fed him.
It was his function to find the lives necessary to sustain his armour, his horse, himself — find the lives and then take them.
He was a prisoner within the bronze suit, but the suit and its mount needed him to achieve the deaths which they required for survival. At such times the sword would be released from its scabbard, so that it might fulfil its function of slaying.
Even yet he possessed some vestigial trace of independence. He did not have to slaughter, to steal lives. But if he did not do so, then the armour would feed off his own life, draining away another piece of his humanity. He could feel the bronze becoming part of him, himself becoming part of the bronze. This was what had happened to the horse; animal and armour were totally as one.
And this was what must have happened to the previous wearer of the suit. The armour had finally sucked him dry, then fallen apart to await the next victim who would step into the panoply.
He was the warrior in bronze.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The bronze knight rode on, killing whenever he must, because that was the only way in which he could survive.
He was a warrior, however, and he only killed in combat. But in a world of war and battle, a land of armies and soldiers, there was never a shortage of victims.
Many a trooper fell to his sword; many a horseman died on the end of his lance.
And then there were all the others who also sacrificed their lives to him, the ones who did not belong to any true military force, the bestial creatures who saw him as no more than another enemy to be slaughtered. Instead, it was they who were slain.
There was no consciousness involved in any of this killing. It was simply his function, what he did, all he did. He was the perfect death-dealing machine.
He saw an enemy. He fought the enemy. That enemy died.
The rider was invincible, invulnerable, and every victory granted him further power to continue his crusade against life -both human and inhuman.
The days passed by, days and nights without number; and with each of them were the miles, the miles beyond counting.
And on rode the knight in bronze.
* * *
Deep within, he was aware of the pain.
He felt no real pain, not as such, because machines were immune to the sufferings that affected living creatures. But he endured a different kind of agony, which meant that the shell which held his inner being captive had decided it was again the time to slay.
He needed to kill soon, or he would lose another part of himself to his captor. If there were no alternative source of nourishment, he would replace the next victim — yet his own death would take almost forever.
He must find relief from that burden. He must kill.
Beyond the narrow slits in his visor, the darkness was fading. It was the beginning of another period of light, the time when men and non-men walked the world, the time for fighting, the time for killing, the time for death.
And there, ahead of him, stood his victim.
This was the way it had been so frequently. He did not need to search for an adversary, because they sought him out, issuing their challenges to arms. He paid no more attention to the silver figure than he did to any of the others, took no heed of his words.
After so long, they were all the same.
What was less than usual about this one was that, although armoured like a knight, he was on foot. He stood in a glade between two rows of trees, his sword in one hand, a huge oval shield in the other. The bronze warrior also drew his sword. His horse began to canter forward, picking up speed as it approached his new opponent.
But halfway to the swordsman, the animal suddenly jerked back and slowed its pace. It had never done this previ
ously; something was evidently wrong. The horse soon gathered momentum again, although its legs seemed uncoordinated. The rider was thrown about in the saddle as his mount lurched forward. He gripped the reins firmly, trying to control the steed with his body and his legs. He had never needed to do this before.
The armoured shape ahead stood in exactly the same position as it had. It neither raised its sword in offence nor its shield in defence.
Rider and horse moved ever closer, but the horse was again losing speed, and each of its legs seemed out of step with the others. It kept veering away from the target, before pulling back in the correct direction.
A single blow was all that would be needed to fell the motionless figure, and the warrior raised his sword — or attempted to…
His arm refused to obey the command. He could feel his muscles straining, but the armour in which his arm was trapped would not move. It had locked rigid. Then, abruptly, the horse collapsed beneath him and he was thrown from the animal.
He landed in a heap at the feet of the unmounted knight. He was unable to turn his helmet, and his vision was restricted to a narrow angle which encompassed part of the sky and his fallen horse a few yards away.
Only then did he realize that he was free of the animal. He had been separated from it for the first time since… he could not remember.
There was very little that he could remember. It seemed that he and the horse and their combined armour had been united for all of his life. He was dimly aware of a previous existence, that he had once lived an independent life, but he was unable to recall any of it.
He saw various movements between himself and the motionless horse, a few small and broad figures examining him and the animal. Men, like he had once been. No, he realized, prompted by a distant memory — dwarfs. The creatures were dwarfs. He could see four of them.
[Konrad 02] - Shadowbreed Page 9